c#\p  \ 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


AN  EXPLANATION  OF  THE  BALLOT  REFORMS  USUALLY  KNOWN  AS  “  PREFERENTIAL 
VOTING  ”  AND  “  PROPORTIONAL  REPRESENTATION.” 


By  C.  G.  Hoag. 


INTRODUCTION — THE  TWO  OBJECTS  OF  VOTING. 

Many  of  the  gravest  evils  of  our  politics  in  local,  State,  and  Federal 
Government  are  due  in  a  considerable  degree  to  our  failure  hitherto  to 
grasp  the  distinction  between  the  two  fundamentally  different  objects 
:  of  voting  and  to  adopt  the  right  sort  of  ballot  for  carrying  out  each. 

One  of  the  objects  to  be  carried  out  by  voting  is  to  make  decisions 
either  between  policies  (measures)  or  between  candidates  for  admin¬ 
istrative  positions.  For  that  object  majority  voting  is  obviously 
!  required  by  the  fundamental  principles  of  democracy. 

The  other  object  to  be  carried  out  by  voting  is  to  make  up  a  deliber¬ 
ative  body  fit  to  make  decisions — subject  or  not  to  the  operation  of 
the  initiative  and  the  referendum — on  behalf  of  all  the  people.  Now, 
though  the  principles  of  democracy  require  that  the  decisions  made 
in  such  a  body  should  be  made  by  majority  voting,  they  by  no  means 
[require  that  the  body  itself  should  be  made  up  by  majority  voting. 
Iln  making  up  such  a  body,  as  has  been  recognized  universally — 
though  till  recently  very  confusedly — each  member’s  right  to  a  seat 
should  rest  on  his  being  the  choice,  not  of  a  majority  of  all  the  voters 
represented  by  the  body,  but  merely  of  such  part  of  them  as  we  call 
a  ‘‘constituency.” 

This  fundamental  distinction  between  the  two  objects  of  voting  is 
the  secret  of  fundamental  electoral  reform.  It  reveals  to  us  in  what 
cases  rational  reform  means  replacing  a  plurality  system  by  a  majority 
system  and  in  what  cases  it  means  replacing  our  present  constituency 
system*,  under  which  a  member  of  a  deliberative  body  is  elected  by 
a  plurality  of  a  constituency,  not  by  a  majority-of-a-constituency 
system  but  by  a  unanimous-constituency  or  “proportional”  system. 

Plurality  voting  should  be  replaced  by  majority  voting  wherever, 
as  I  have  said,  a  decision  is  to  be  made.  That  means  wherever 
measures  are  voted  on  in  deliberative  bodies,  wherever  measures  are 
voted  on  directly  at  the  polls,  and  wherever  administrative  officials 
are  selected  or  removed  by  deliberative  bodies  or  are  elected  or 
recalled  at  the  polls.1 

Whenever  the  object  of  an  election  is  to  make  up  a  body  fit  to  make 
decisions  or  choose  administrative  officers,  our  present  system  of 
fvoting  in  fixed  arbitrary  constituencies  should  be  replaced  by  a 
katiopal  constituency  system  in  which  neither  pluralities  nor  majori¬ 
ties  have  any  place. 

I  i  But  see  passages  in  Part  II  where  it  is  suggested  that  such  oflicials  should  not  be  elected  at  the  polls 
it  all. 


3 


4 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


Part  I. 

MAJORITY  VOTING - COMMONLY  CALLED  “ PREFERENTIAL  VOTING.” 

That  the  ballots  should  reveal  the  will  of  the  majority  except  when 
their  object  is  the  election  of  a  decision-making  body  is  obviously  of 
considerable  importance.  And  in  order  that  they  may  reveal  that 
will,  they  must  give  the  voters  the  opportunity  to  express  their  will 
so  fully  that  the  will  of  the  majority  can  be  learned  from  them  no 
matter  how  many  the  competing  policies  or  candidates  may  be  or 
what  the  grouping  of  the  voters  at  the  particular  election  in  question. 

Ballots  that  allow  such  an  adequate  expression  of  the  voter’s  will 
with  this  object  in  view  have  usually  been  called  “ preferential 
ballots,”  and  the  systems  of  applying  them  have  usually  been  called 
systems  of  “preferential  voting.”  Those  names,  however,  are 
ambiguous,  for  giving  the  voter  an  opportunity  to  express  several 
preferences  on  the  ballot  is  also  a  feature  of  the  Hare  system  of  voting 
to  make  up  a  representative  body.  I  have  thought  it  best,  therefore, 
to  call  such  ballots  majority  ballots  and  such  a  system  majority  voting . 

Electoral  systems  designed  to  reveal  the  will  of  the  majority  by  a 
single  election  are  in  use  for  final  elections  in  Queensland,  Victoria, 
and  Western  Australia,  Grand  Junction  (Colorado),  Spokane  (Wash¬ 
ington),  and  elsewhere,  and  for  primary  elections  in  Wisconsin, 
Minnesota,  North  Dakota,  and  possibly  elsewhere. 

In  respect  to  these  systems  two  criticisms  must  be  made.  The 
first  concerns  their  application:  They  are  applied,  in  the  places  men¬ 
tioned,  not  only  to  the  election  of  administrative  officials,  where 
majority  voting  is  desirable,  but  to  the  election  of  deliberative  bodies, 
where  majority  voting,  as  I  have  said  and  as  everybody  who  under¬ 
stands  proportional  representation  knows,  is  absolutely  out  of  place. 
The  second  criticism  concerns  the  systems  themselves:  Every  one  of 
them  is  defective — that  is,  every  one  of  them  may  fail  to  reveal  the 
will  of  the  majority  truly. 

Leaving  the  point  raised  by  the  first  of  these  criticisms  to  be  covered 
later  in  this  paper,  I  propose  to  discuss  briefly  now  the  defects  of 
these  systems,  to  explain  a  system  that  lacks  those  defects,  and  to 
consider  the  whole  problem  in  its  practical  aspects. 

The  system  used  in  Queensland  and  that  used  in  Wisconsin  and 
Minnesota  are  different  modifications  of  the  more  complete  ahd  less 
defective  Ware  system.  Without  discussing  the  defects  of  the 
modifications,  therefore,  which  were  injudiciously  devised  to  simplify 
the  Ware  system,  let  me  explain  the  latter  sytem  itself,  which  is  used 
in  Western  Australia. 

Under  the  Ware  system  the  voter  is  allowed  to  indicate  his  prefer¬ 
ence  among  the  candidates — as  many  preferences  as  he  pleases — by 
putting  the  figure  1  opposite  the  name  of  his  first  choice,  the  figure 
2  opposite  the  name  of  his  second  choice,  and  so  on.  “The  first1 
count  is  only  of  the  first  choice  votes.  If  no  candidate  has  a  majority, 
the  lowest  candidate  is  excluded  and  Ms  votes  only  are  scrutmized 
again  and  added  to  the  votes  of  the  other  candidates  as  the  prefer¬ 
ences  indicate.  The  candidates  are  thus  successively  excluded 
until  only  two  are  left,  of  whom  the  higher  will  have  a  majority 


1  The  uncredited  quotations  in  this  paper  are  from  a  valuable  paper  on  “ Preferential  Voting”  in  Equity 
July  10,  1910,  by  William  Hoag,  of  Boston,  Mass.,  then  Secretary  of  the  American  Proportional  Repre¬ 
sentation  League. 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


5 


vote  and  be  elected.”  The  defect  of  this  Ware  system,  which  is 
shared  by  the  more  defective  modified  forms  of  it  mentioned,  con¬ 
sists  in  the  fact  that  a  candidate  who,  according  to  the  ballots  as 
marked,  is  really  preferred  by  the  majority  to  any  other  of  the  candi¬ 
dates,  taken  singly,  may  possibly  be  dropped  after  one  of  the  counts 
because  at  the  bottom  of  the  poll  then,  when  his  real  strength  is 
not  completely  revealed. 

The  system  of  majority  voting  used,  in  slightly  different  forms, 
in  Grand  Junction,  Spokane,  and  elsewhere  is  distinctly  different 
from  those  on  the  Ware  principle.  It  offers  the  voter  an  opportunity 
of  indicating  on  the  ballot  his  first  choice  (by  a  cross  in  a  square 
opposite  the  name),  his  second  choice  (by  a  cross  in  a  second  square 
opposite  the  name),  and  his  u other  choices”  (by  crosses  in  a  third 
column  of  squares  opposite  the  names).  Following  is  a  ballot 
marked  correctly  by  a  voter  whose  first  choice  is  D,  whose  second 
choice  is  B,  and  whose  u other  choices”  are  A  and  G. 


First 

choice. 

Second 

choice. 

Other 

choices. 

A 

X 

B 

X 

c 

D 

X 

E 

F 

G 

X 

The  rules  for  counting  the  votes  under  this  system,  as  used  in 
Grand  Junction,  are  substantially  as  follows:  “A  count  is  first  taken 
of  first  choices.  If  no  candidate  has  a  majority,  the  candidate 
lowest  on  the  first  Count  is  excluded  and  a  second  count  is  taken  of 
all  the  ballots,  counting  first  and  second  choices  for  the  remaining 
candidates.  The  highest  candidate  at  this  count  is  elected  if  he 
has  a  majority  of  all  the  ballots.  But  if  no  candidate  receives  such 
a  majority,  the  candidate  having  the  smallest  number  of  first  and 
second  choice  votes  is  excluded  and  a  third  count  is  taken  of  first, 
second,”  and  other  choices.  The  candidate  having  the  most  votes 
on  this  third  count  wins. 

The  rules  of  counting  the  ballots  in  Spokane  differ  from  those  in 
Grand  Junction  in  one  respect:  In  Spokane,  when  the  second  or  the 
third  count  is  made,  there  is  no  dropping  of  the  candidate  who  stands 
lowest  on  the  preceding  count.  This  is  unquestionably  an  improve¬ 
ment,  for  the  dropping  of  the  lowest  man,  though  necessary  in  sys¬ 
tems  of  the  Ware  type,  is  not  necessary  at  all  in  this  one. 

Considering  this  system,  then,  only  in  the  better  form  in  which  it 
has  been  adopted,  that  of  Spokane,  we  have  to  ask  whether  it  is  or 
is  not  defective.  Is  it  sure,  in  other  words,  to  reveal  the  will  of  the 
majority  truly?  Is  it  not.  The  reasons  are  to  be  found  in  two  de- 


6 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


fects.  The  first  may  be  described  as  that  of  letting  a  voter’s  second 
choice  completely  offset  or  neutralize  his  first  choice,  so  far  as  the 
relative  standing  of  those  two  candidates  on  the  second  count  is  con¬ 
cerned,  as  certainly  happens  at  the  second  count  under  this  system, 
or  of  letting  his  third  choice  offset  or  neutralize  his  first  and  his  sec¬ 
ond,  so  far  as  the  relative  standing  of  those  three  candidates  on  the 
third  count  is  concerned,  as  certainly  happens  at  the-  third  count 
under  this  system,  etc.  The  second  defect  is  allowing  u  other  choices  ” 
lower  than  third  choices  to  be  taken  into  account  before  it  is  found 
out  whether  some  candidate  has  not  a  majority  when  only  first, 
second,  and  third  choices  have  been  taken  into  account. 

The  first  of  these  defects  is  inherent  in  this  system.  To  get  rid  of 
it,  in  other  words,  would  mean  abandoning  the  system  altogether. 
The  question  arises,  then,  how  important,  practically,  this  defect  really 
is.  From  the  point  of  view  in  my  explanation  of  it  above  it  seems 
gross.  And  there  is  no  question  but  that  it  may,  like  the  inherent 
defect  of  the  Ware  system — the  dropping  of  the  lowest  man — bring 
about  an  erroneous  result.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  if  considered 
from  another  point  of  view,  it  does  not  look  quite  so  bad.  Though 
it  is  true  that  my  second-choice  mark  on  the  ballot  does  com¬ 
pletely  neutralize  my  first-choice  mark,  so  far  as  the  relative  standing 
of  those  two  candidates  on  the  second  count  is  concerned,  it  is  true 
also  that  the  two  marks  help  on  that  count  both  those  candidates  as 
against  all  the  rest.  To  mark  a  candidate  as  second  choice  under  the 
Spokane  system,  then,  means  helping  the  candidate  thus  marked  in 
case  no  candidate  gets  a  majority  on  the  first  count,  and  in  that  case 
only,  equally  with  the  candidate  marked  as  first  choice  as  against  all 
the  rest  on  the  ballot.  It  is  therefore  only  in  case  the  struggle  for 
the  office  turns  out  to  be  between  the  candidate  of  my  first  and  the 
candidate  of  my  second  choice,  and  is  not  settled  until  the  second  or 
a  subsequent  count,  that  my  marking  the  candidate  of  my  second 
choice  will  prove  to  have  tended  to  thwart  my  will.  The  defect  is 
considerable,  but  its  importance  can  easily  be  overestimated;  it  does 
not  prevent  the  Spokane  system  from  being  a  vast  improvement 
on  plurality  voting  for  all  elections  whose  object  is  the  making  of 
decisions. 

The  second  defect  of  the  Spokane  system  can  easily  be  eliminated, 
and  in  my  opinion  it  should  be.  The  excuses  for  its  presence  in  the 
system  are  three:  First,  it  is  argued  that  for  most  voters  the  desig¬ 
nating  of  the  exact  order  of  preferences  below  the  second  is  impossible. 
Secondly,  it  is  argued  that  all  that  the  voter  needs,  beyond  the  op¬ 
portunity  to  record  his  first  and  his  second  preference,  is  the  oppor¬ 
tunity  to  vote  against  the  candidates  whom  he  regards  as  positively 
objectionable,  and  that  this  last  opportunity  is  given  him  by  the 
u other  choice”  column  of  squares.  Thirdly,  it  is  argued  that  it 
would  encumber  the  ballot  to  put  on  it  more  than  three  columns  of 
squares. 

The  third  of  those  arguments  can  be  met  by  saying  simply  that 
the  form  of  the  ballot  and  the  method  of  indicating  preferences  should 
be  the  same  under  the  Spokane  system  as  under  the  Ware;  in  other 
words,  that  there  should  be  but  one  column  of  squares  and  that  the 
voter  should  be  asked  to  record  his  preferences  in  that  column  by 
the  figures  1,  2,  3,  etc.  This  method  is  supposed  to  be  difficult  for 
the  voters  only  by  those  who  have  never  seen  it  in  use.  In  fact  it  is 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


7 


not  difficult  at  all,  even  to  voters  of  little  education.  On  this  point 
there  is  conclusive  evidence.  See  the  testimony  of  Earl  Grey,1  re¬ 
cently  Governor  General  of  Canada,  before  the  Royal  Commission  on 
Systems  of  Election,  and  that  of  the  Hon.  John  McCall,2  agent  general 
of  Tasmania  (where  the  method  mentioned  is  used  in  connection  with 
proportional  representation)  before  the  same  commission. 

The  first  and  the  second  of  the  excuses  reveal  a  failure  to  appreciate 
the  fundamental  importance,  in  the  long  run,  of  giving  the  voter  at 
least  the  opportunity  of  expressing  his  will  fully.  Any  restriction  of 
the  voter’s  freedom  to  express  his  will  fully  not  only  may  but  must 
result  in  a  transfer  of  political  power  from  the  voters,  who  should 
have  it  all,  to  somebody  else  to  whom  chance  or  shrewdness  delivers 
it.  Any  such  restriction,  therefore,  is  a  vitiation  of  democracy  at 
the  fountain  head.  Moreover,  the  idea  that  there  is  sure  to  be  a 
longer  gap,  in  the  voter’s  opinion,  between  his  third  choice  and  his 
fourth — or  between  his  sixth  and  his  seventh,  for  that  matter — than 
between  his  first  and  his  second  is  a  mere  assumption  and  in  fact  is 
not  true.  The  writer  happened  to  be  arguing  this  point  about  the 
time  of  the  national  party  conventions  of  1912  with  a  man  of  Demo¬ 
cratic  and  Progressive  tendencies,  who  insisted  that  there  was  sure 
to  be  a  longer  gap  between  a  voter’s  first  choice  and  his  second  than 
between  two  choices  lower  down  in  his  scale.  When,  however,  I 
mentioned  the  names  of  the  principal  aspirants  for  the  Presidency, 
and  asked  him  where,  in  his  own  list  of  preferences  among  those 
aspirants,  the  big  gap  came,  he  admitted  in  an  instant  that  it  came 
between  the  fourth  one  and  the  fifth.  A  system  of  voting  based  on 
what  voters  11  aren’t  intelligent  enough  to  do”  or  u probably  don’t 
want  to  do  anyway”  is  not  a  system  that  will  prove  satisfactory  in 
the  long  run.  What  we  must  come  to  in  the  end  is  a  system  that 
permits  the  voter  to  express  his  will  as  fully  as  he  wants  to. 

To  improve  the  Spokane  system,  then,  provide  only  one  column 
of  squares  for  the  voter’s  marks,  and  let  him  indicate  his  preferences — 
as  many  or  as  few  as  he  pleases — by  the  figures  1,  2,  3,  etc.,  thus: 


A . 

3 

B . 

2 

C . 

D . 

1 

E . 

F . 

G . 

4 

Then  take  into  account  only  first,  second,  and  third  choice  votes  on 
the  third  count;  only  first,  second,  third,  and  fourth  choice  votes  on 
the  fourth  count;  and  so  on.  With  those  improvements  the  Spokane 
system  will  be  at  its  best,  with  only  the  one  defect  that  I  have  men¬ 
tioned  as  inherent  in  it. 

The  question  now  arises:  Is  there  not  some  system  of  voting  by 
which  the  will  of  the  majority  can  be  determined  by  a  single  balloting 
with  absolute  certainty?  There  is.  It  is  known  as  Nanson’s  method, 

1  P.  183  of  the  British  Government  Blue  Book,  entitled  Minutes  of  Evidence  taken  before  the  Royal 
Commission  on  Systems  of  Election.  The  Blue  Book  is  numbered  “ed.  5352,  ”  London,  1910.  Price,  Is.  8d. 

2  P.  188  of  the  same  Blue  Book. 


8 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


because  invented  by  Prof.  E.  J.  Nanson,  of  the  University  of  Mel¬ 
bourne,  Australia,  and  it  is  explained  and  defended  by  him  on  pages 
121-141  of  the  Blue  Book  of  the  British  Government  entitled  “  Re¬ 
ports  from  His  Majesty’s  Representatives  in  Foreign  Countries  and  in 
British  Colonies  Respecting  the  Application  of  the  Principle  of  Pro¬ 
portional  Representation  to  Public  Elections.”  1  With  this  method 
is  used  the  same  preferential  method  of  voting  that  is  used  with  the 
Ware  method  and  that  I  have  advocated  for  use  with  the  Spokane 
method.  In  the  count  a — 

first  choice  is  counted  one,  a  second  choice  two,  a  third  choice  three,  and  so  on,  as 
far  as  choices  are  indicated ;  all  other  candidates  are  given  a  number  one  greater  than 
the  number  given  the  last  choice  of  the  voter.  The  additions  are  then  made  and  all 
candidates  excluded  whose  total  is  more  than  the  average.  Another  scrutiny  is  then 
taken  of  all  the  ballots  to  ascertain  the  order  of  preference  of  the  remaining  candidates, 
another  similar  count  made,  and  all  above  the  average  excluded  again.  This  process 
is  continued  until  only  one  candidate  remains,  and  he  is  elected.  The  successful 
candidate  will  almost  always  be  the  choice  of  a  majority  of  the  voters  over  each  of  the 
other  candidates,  and,  if  not,  he  will  be  the  choice  either  over  more  candidates  than 
any  other,  or,  if  only  the  choice  over  an  equal  number,  he  will  be  preferred  to  those 
others  by  a  greater  majority  or  judged  inferior  by  a  smaller.  In  short,  all  that  can  be 
accomplished  by  a  comparison  two  by  two — 

That  is,  a  comparison  of  every  candidate  with  every  other  taken 
by  himself — 

can  be  accomplished  by  this  abbreviated  method  of  Nanson’ s.  The  method  may 
therefore  safely  be  regarded  as  a  complete  solution  of  the  problem  of  ascertaining  the 
will  of  the  majority.  *  *  *  The  voting  is  simplicity  itself,  but  the  counting  is 

often  more  tedious  than  with  Ware’s  method  because  all  the  ballots  have  to  be  scru¬ 
tinized  at  every  count.  The  number  of  counts  required  is  controlled  by  the  number 
of  candidates.  Four  candidates  might  make  two  counts  necessary,  8  candidates 
three  counts,  16  candidates  four  counts,  32  candidates  five  counts,  and  so  on,  one  addi¬ 
tional  count  being  possibly  necessary  for  every  doubling  of  the  number  of  candidates. 
*  *  *  It  should  be  realized,  however,  that  each  count  accomplishes  all  that  could 

be  accomplished  by  holding  another  election;  and  it  will  not  be  questioned  that 
another  count  is  far  simpler  and  less  expensive  than  another  election. 

We  have  now  considered  three  methods  of  voting  designed  to  reveal 
the  choice  of  the  majority  among  several  candidates  (or  measures)  by 
means  of  a  single  balloting.  Let  us  now  review  comprehensively 
the  points  of  likeness  and  those  of  difference  between  them. 

The  three  systems  all  differ  from  the  nonp referential  voting  hitherto 
common  in  this  country  in  that  they  give  the  voter  the  opportunity  of 
recording  not  merely  one  single  desire — the  desire  to  support  a  certain 
candidate  (or  measure) ,  but  as  much  of  his  will  as  he  cares  to  express  in 
respect  to  where  his  support  is  to  go  under  the  various  circumstances  that 
may  be  found  to  have  arisen  when  the  ballots  begin  to  be  counted.  In 
other  words,  they  all  differ  from  the  nonpreferential  system  in 
that  they  give  the  voter  not  merely  the  privilege  of  casting  a  ballot, 
but  the  privilege  of  making  it  effective. 

The  three  systems  are  not  necessarily  different  in  respect  to  the 
method  by  which  the  voter  records  his  will  on  the  ballot.  For  the 
Ware  and  Nanson  systems  provide  for  the  indication  of  the  voter’s 
preferences  by  means  of  the  figures  1,  2,  3,  etc.;  and  the  Spokane  sys¬ 
tem,  as  I  have  said,  could  and  should  be  changed  so  as  to  do  so. 

The  only  essential  difference  between  the  three  systems,  then,  is 
the  rules  for  counting  the  ballots — that  is,  for  deducing  from  them 
what  is  to  be  regarded  as  the  will  of  the  majority. 

1  London,  1907.  Price,  Is.  3d.  This  Blue  Book  is  designated  “Miscellaneous  No.  3  (1907). ”  The  inclu¬ 
sion  of  such  a  paper  in  a  hatch  of  reports  on  proportional  representation  is  an  example  of  the  common  con¬ 
fusion  of  that  system  with  the  use  of  a  preferential  ballot  for  majority  voting.  The  confusion  was  not  Prof. 
Nanson’s,  of  course,  hut  that  of  some  Government  official. 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


9 


I  have  already  said  that,  so  far  as  insuring  a  correct  result  is  con¬ 
cerned,  the  Ware  and  Spokane  rules  are  fallible  and  the  Nanson  system 
infallible.  Let  me  now  support  that  assertion  by  a  concrete  example, 
taken  from  the  Equity  article  by  Mr.  William  Hoag  referred  to  above. 

Suppose  A,  B,  C,  D,  and  E  are  candidates  for  a  single  office  that  is 
to  be  filled  by  majority  vote,  and  suppose  the  ballots  cast  in  the  elec¬ 
tion,  15  in  number,  are  marked  as  indicated  below,  where  each  line 
of  figures  running  up  and  down  the  page  represents  the  preferences 
of  one  of  the  15  voters  as  expressed  on  his  ballot. 


A .  222142  4521  21 

B .  3  1454334331  34 

C .  44  315113423421 

D .  134223421154342 

E .  513  31252  421  3 


With  these  ballots  cast,  the  Ware  rules  would  elect  E.  With  the 
same  ballots,  the  Spokane  rules  would  elect  A.  (With  the  same  bal¬ 
lots,  it  may  be  noted  in  passing,  the  nonpreferential  ballot  still  preva¬ 
lent  in  this  country  would  elect  C.)  But  a  careful  comparison  of  the 
ballots  will  show  that  the  candidate  who  is  unquestionably  preferred 
by  a  majority  of  the  voters,  as  against  any  other  of  the  candidates  taken 
singly,  is  D.  From  a  two-by-two  comparison  it  appears  that — 


D  defeats  A  singly .  8  to  7 

D  defeats  B  singly . : .  10  to  5 


D  defeats  C  singly. .  .  8  to  7 

D  defeats  E  singly .  8  to  7 


Well,  then,  do  the  Nanson  rules  elect  D?  Let  us  carry  them  out 
and  see. 

First  scrutiny ,  Nanson  rules . 

A .  22214254521521  5=  43 

B .  35145433433153  4=  51 


C..... .  4  4  5  3  1  5  1  1  3  4  2  3  4  2  1=  43 

D .  134223421  15434  2=  41 


E 


5  3=  47 


225 

As  the  average  is  45,  and  B  and  E  are  higher  than  the  average,  they 
are  excluded  and  the  ballots  again  examined.  The  preferences  appear 
as  follows  on  the — 


Second  scrutiny,  B  and  E  excluded. 

A .  21113133321311  3=  29 

C .  13  3  3  3  1  3  1  1  2  3  2  1  3  2  1=  32 

D .  122222221  13223  2=  29 


90 

The  average  is  30,  and  C  is  excluded  because  his  total  is  above  30. 


1  The  figure  3  appears  here  in  place  of  the  figure  4,  which  the  person  who  cast  this  ballot  actually  put 
opposite  ihe  name  of  candidate  C,  because  candidates  B  and  E  have  now  been  eliminated  and  the  figures 
used  in  this  second  count  under  the  Nanson  rules  must  be  those  that  indicate  the  preferences  of  the  voters 
among  Ihe  remaining  candidates  only.  It  will  be  found  that  this  table  and  the  following  one  are  made  up  in 
accordance  with  this  principle.  It  will  be  noticed,  also,  that  a  count  ing  clerk  could  read  off  the  figures  of 
this  table  from  the  preceding  table  as  fast  as  another  clerk  could  write  the  figures  in  this  table  down.  To 
read  them  off  conveniently,  the  reading  clerk  would  have  only  to  draw  a  line  through  the  figures,  indicating 
the  preferences  expressed  by  all  the  voters  for  candidates  B  and  E. 

The  complete  text  of  the  Nanson  rules  is  printed  elsewhere  in  this  issue  of  Equity. 


10 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


Third  scrutiny ,  C  excluded . 

A .  21112122221211  2=23 

D .  12221211112122  1=22 


A  is  excluded  and  D  elected. 

Fortunately  the  Nanson  rules  can  give  nothing  but  the  same  cor¬ 
rect  result  in  any  case,  for  they  cover  fully  the  mathematical  law  that 
governs  all  cases  possible. 

So  much  for  the  correctness  of  the  three  methods  of  counting  the 
ballots:  The  Ware  and  Spokane  methods  are  fallible  and  the  Nanson 
method  infallible.  We  have  now  to  compare  the  three  methods  in 
another  respect,  their  relative  ease  of  operation  in  elections  of  various 
sorts. 

The  Ware  rules  require  the  bringing  together  to  the  central  electoral 
authorities  either  of  all  the  ballots  themselves  or  of  a  full  transcript 
record  of  them  in  order  that  the  particular  ballots  cast  for  a  candidate 
who  is  eliminated  may  be  made  effective,  each  for  the  candidate 
marked  on  it  as  preferred  by  the  voter  among  the  candidates  who  can 
be  helped  by  his  vote.  The  Nanson  rules  make  the  same  requirement 
in  order  that  the  Nanson  provisions  for  the  second  and  any  necessary 
subsequent  counts  may  be  carried  out.  The  Spokane  rules  require 
at  the  central  electoral  bureau  neither  the  ballots  themselves  nor  a 
full  transcript  record  of  them;  all  they  require  there  is  a  record  of  the 
number  of  first-choice  votes,  the  number  of  second-choice  votes,  the 
number  of  third-choice  votes,  etc.,  that  each  candidate  received  at 
each  precinct.  So  far  as  this  difference  goes,  therefore,  the  Ware  and 
the  Nanson  rules  are  less  acceptable,  especially  in  the  case  of  elections 
covering  an  extended  territory  such  as  an  entire  State,  than  the 
Spokane  rules. 

The  work  of  actually  counting  the  votes  is  somewhat  greater,  on  the 
average,  with  the  Nanson  rules  than  with  either  the  Ware  or  the 
Spokane.  I  say  this  for  what  it  is  worth,  hastening,  however,  to  add 
that  the  additional  work  required  by  the  Nanson  rules  should,  in  my 
opinion,  be  regarded  as  negligible  in  comparison  with  the  infallibility 
of  the  Nanson  rules.  On  the  average  the  work  of  counting  under  the 
Ware  rules  and  that  under  the  amended  Spokane  rules  seem  to  be 
about  the  same. 

In  what  cases  then,  if  any,  should  each  of  the  three  sets  of  rules  be 
used  ?  On  this  point  I  can  not  pretend  to  speak  for  anyone  besides 
myself. 

The  Nanson  rules,  without  question,  should  be  used  whenever 
decisions  are  to  be  made  in  representative  bodies  or  in  assemblies  of 
any  sort;  for  in  such  cases  there  is  no  need  of  trying  to  avoid  the 
trifling  extra  work  required  to  make  sure  that  the  result  will  be  cor¬ 
rect.  They  should  also  be  used  whenever  decisions  are  to  be  made 
at  the  polls  unless  the  opposition  to  the  extra  work  they  require — 
which  of  course  is  slight  in  comparison  with  that  involved  in  a  second 
election — is  insurmountable. 

The  Ware  or  the  Spokane  rules — the  latter  amended  of  course — 
should  be  used  whenever  decisions  are  to  be  made  at  the  polls  where 
the  opposition  to  the  extra  work  required  by  the  Nanson  rules  is 
insurmountable.  That  opposition  will  naturally  be  strongest  of 
course  in  cases  where  the  territory  covered  by  the  election  is  not  com¬ 
pact  like  that  of  a  municipality,  but  extended  like  that  of  a  State ;  and 
in  such  cases  the  rules  in  favor  of  which  the  Nanson  ndes  will  be 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


11 


rejected  will  be  likely  to  be  the  Spokane  rules,  which  do  not  require 
the  bringing  together  of  the  ballots  for  the  completion  of  the  count, 
rather  than  the  Ware  rules,  which  do  make  that  requirement. 

In  many  cases,  therefore,  the  contest,  as  soon  as  the  Nanson  system 
is  understood  and  appreciated,  will  probably  be  between  that  infallible 
system,  wdiich  requires  a  little  more  work  and  the  bringing  together 
of  the  ballots,  and  the  (amended)  Spokane  system,  which  does  not 
require  the  bringing  together  of  the  ballots.  The  Ware  rules,  how¬ 
ever,  are  worthy  of  support  wherever  the  Nanson  rules  can  not  be 
1  ted  and  the  Ware  rules  happen  to  be  preferred  to  the  (amended) 


:ane 


My  putting  of  the  (amended)  Spokane  rules  on  a  par  with  the  Ware 
thus  is  not  in  accordance,  I  know,  with  the  views  of  some  experts  on 
“preferential  voting” — prominent  members  of  the  American  Propor¬ 
tional  Representation  League — who  are  at  least  as  well  qualified  as 
I  am  to  express  an  opinion  on  the  point.  No  course  is  open  to  me, 
however,  but  to  present  the  matter  as  I  see  it,  and  though  the  Ware 
rules  seem  to  me  to  have  one  advantage  over  the  amended  Spokane* 
the  latter  have  over  the  Ware  two  advantages  which,  taken  together, 
seem  to  me  to  balance  the  one  on  the  other  side. 

The  advantage  of  the  Ware  rules  is  that  they  are  similar  to  those 
for  the  counting  of  the  ballots  under  the  very  best  system  of  “propor¬ 
tional  representation,”  as  it  is  usually  called;  that  is,  of  electing  delib¬ 
erative  or  decision-making  bodies  by  unanimous  constituency  instead 
of  by  mere  plurality  or  majority  of  a  constituency.  This  similarity 
will  be  evident  to  the  reader  when  he  comes  to  the  explanation  in 
Part  II  of  this  article  of  the  Hare  system  of  proportional  representation, 
for  that  is  the  best  system  of  proportional  representation,  and  the 
rules  of  counting  under  it  are  similar  in  method,  though  different  in 
object,  to  those  of  the  Ware  system  of  majority  voting.  As  we  shall 
doubtless  eventually  adopt  the  Hare  plan  of  electing  representatives 
in  deliberative  bodies,  the  advantage  of  adopting  a  majority  system 
under  which  the  procedure  in  counting  the  ballots  is  similar  is  obvi¬ 
ously  considerable. 

Of  the  two  advantages  of  the  amended  Spokane  over  the  Ware 
rules  one  has  already  been  mentioned,  the  fact  that  neither  the  bal¬ 
lots  themselves  nor  any  but  the  simplest  records  of  them  need  to  be 
sent  from  the  precincts  to  the  central  electoral  authorities  for  the 
completion  of  the  count.  This  practical  advantage  is  of  real  impor¬ 
tance  in  State-wide  elections,  and  it  will  be  thought  by  many  to  be 
of  some  importance  in  large  cities.  The  other  practical  advantage  of 
the  amended  Spokane  rules  is  their  extreme  plausibility  on  being 
explained  in  the  briefest  way. 

So  far  as  liability  to  error  in  determining  the  will  of  the  majority  is 
concerned,  the  improved  Spokane  system  is  about  on  a  par,  in  my 
opinion,  with  the  Ware.  Neither,  as  we  have  seen,  is  infallible;  but, 
on  the  other  hand,  neither  is  likely  to  result  in  any  serious  misinter¬ 
pretation  of  the  majority’s  will.  Under  the  Ware  system  it  is  surely 
improbable  that  a  candidate  desired  by  a  majority,  as  agamst  any 
other  one  candidate,  will  be  dropped  as  the  lowest  of  all  at  any  stage 
of  the  process  of  counting,  and  it  is  certain  that  any  candidate  elected 
by  the  Ware  system  will  have,  if  not  an  absolute' majority  as  against 
every  other  one  candidate,  at  least  exceedingly  strong  support. 
Under  the  amended  Spokane  system  also  it  is  highly  improbable  that 


12 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


a  candidate  desired  by  a  majority,  as  against  every  other  one  candi¬ 
date,  will  fail  to  receive  a  majority  of  first  choices  at  the  first  count, 
a  majority  of  firsts  and  seconds  at  the  second  count,  a  majority  of 
firsts  and  seconds  and  thirds  at  the  third  count,  and  so  on  throughout 
all  the  counts  made,  and  it  is  certain  that  any  candidate  elected  by 
this  system  will  have,  if  not  an  absolute  majority  as  against  every 
other  one  candidate,  at  least  very  nearly  that. 

IMPORTANCE  OF  MAJORITY  VOTING  AND  ITS  RELATION  TO  PROPOR¬ 
TIONAL  REPRESENTATION. 

The  superiority  of  any  one  of  these  majority  systems  over  our  old 
plurality  system  is  great,  for  one  of  them  indicates  the  will  of  the 
majority  infallibly  by  a  single  election,  and  the  two  others  indicate 
that  will  more  accurately  by  a  single  election  than  the  old  plurality 
system  does  by  final  election  and  primaries  together.  Any  one  of 
them  makes  primaries  unnecessary.  Any  one  of  them  makes  running 
for  office  more  attractive  to  men  of  the  highest  type.  Any  one  of 
them  allows  the  voter  to  express  his  own  real  will  freely  without  fear 
of  11  throwing  his  vote  away,”  for  if  the  candidate  of  his  first  choice 
can  not  be  elected  his  second  or  some  lower  preference  will  at  once  come 
into  play  to  make  his  ballot  effective  in  helping  the  candidate  he  likes 
best  of  those  who  can  be  helped  by  it.  In  this  way  any  one  of  the  sys¬ 
tems  conduces  to  freedom  in  expressing  the  will  on  the  ballot  and  to 
justice  in  securing  to  that  will,  as  expressed,  its  due  weight  in  the 
making  of  the  decision  at  stake.  In  short,  for  the  making  of  decisions 
by  the  ballot,  any  one  of  the  three  systems  may  fairly  be  called,  in 
contradistinction  to  our  old  system  of  plurality  voting  in  two  elections, 
democracy  in  voting  instead  of  its  mere  semblance,  effective  voting 
instead  of  the  mere  casting  ol  ballots  that  may  count  for  nothing 
toward  deciding  the  issue  according  to  the  voters’  real  will. 

But  whenever  the  object  of  voting — to  come  back  to  a  point  I 
made  at  the  outset — is  not  to  make  a  decision  at  all  but  to  make  up 
a  body  fit  to  make  decisions  in  the  name  of  all  the  voters — in  other 
words,  a  representative  or  deliberative  body — then  majority  voting, 
even  by  an  infallible  system,  is  only  one  degree  less  absurd  and  less 
disastrous  to  democracy  than  plurality  voting  itself.  Indeed,  the 
advantage  of  using  a  good  preferential  majority  system  instead  of  the 
old  system  (of  the  unchangeable  vote,  the  two  elections,  and  the  plu¬ 
rality  rule)  is  trifling  in  comparison  with  the  disadvantage  of  using 
even  the  best  of  majority  system  when  the  object  of  the  voting  is  the 
election  of  a  representative  body.  For  when  that  is  the  object,  it  is 
almost  sure  to  be  defeated,  and  the  principles  of  democracy  grossly 
violated,  unless  a  system  of  voting  be  adopted  by  which  no  candidate 
can  be  elected  to  the  body  unless  he  is  supported  not  merely  by  a 
majority  but  by  approximately  the  whole  of  a  constituency.  And 
that  brings  us  to  the  second  part  of  this  article. 

Part  II. 

UNANIMOUS-CONSTITUENCY  VOTING - “  PROPORTIONAL,”  OR  TRUE, 

REPRESENTATION. 

The  misrepresentation  of  the  people  in  their  legislatures  is  unneces¬ 
sary.  It  is  due  to  our  custom,  which  will  seem  rediculous  to  our 
grandchildren,  of  defining  the  constituency  of  each  member  by  an 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


13 


arbitrary  geographical  bne  and  then  allowing  a  plurality  of  the  voters 
within  the  designated  area  to  elect  the  “representative.”  Such  a 
method  virtually  disfranchises  not  only  all  who  vote  against  the  can¬ 
didate  elected,  who  frequently  comprise  from  40  to  60  per  cent  of  the 
whole  electorate,  but  also — to  a  less  degree — those  who  voted  for 
that  candidate  m  the  final  election  not  because  they  preferred  him 
to  all  others  but  only  because  they  disliked  him  less  than  anv  of  the 
others  who  had  come  through  the  primaries  as  officially  recognized 
candidates.  Thus  our  present  system  makes  it  certain  that  most  of 
the  ballots  will  be  thrown  away  if  marked  for  the  voter’s  first  choice, 
therefore  discouraging  the  expression  of  his  real  will  on  the  ballot, 
and  it  makes  it  probable  that  a  large  percentage  of  the  ballots,  even 
as  marked,  will  be  utterly  ineffective.  It  is  perfectly  feasible,  how¬ 
ever,  by  changing  the  nature  of  the  constituency  from  a  unit  according 
to  geography  to  a  unit  according  to  will,  and  by  allowing  the  voter 
to  express  his  will  on  the  ballot  adequately  instead  of  inadequately — 
that  is,  by  expressing  his  second,  third,  and  other  preferences  as  well 
as  his  first,  or  by  voting  for  a  list  of  candidates  instead  of  for  only  one — * 
to  make  nearly  every  ballot  effective  in  the  make-up  of  the  repre¬ 
sentative  body.  To  be  exact,  at  the  municipal  election  of  1909  in 
Cape  Town,  South  Africa,  where  our  present  system  is  still  used,  only 
42  per  cent  of  the  votes  cast  were  effective  in  electing  members  of  the 
council,  whereas  at  the  elections  of  the  same  year  in  Johannesburg 
and  Pretoria,  where  the  Hare  system  of  proportional  representation 
was  used,  96  per  cent  and  99  per  cent,  respectively,  of  the  ballots  cast 
were  effective  in  electing  members. 

So  much  for  the  relative  justice  of  the  two  systems  from  the  indi¬ 
vidual  voter’s  point  of  view.  Now  consider  it  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  several  political  parties.  In  New  Jersey  in  1912  a  congressional 
delegation  1  was  chosen  from  the  12  districts  of  New  Jersey  in  the 
proportion  of  1  Republican  to  11  Democrats.  In  round  figures 
the  situation  was:  Total  vote,  335,000;  Democratic,  168,000;  Repub¬ 
lican,  96,000;  Progressive,  71,000.  Percentage  of  Democratic  vote^ 
50;  of  Republican,  29;  of  Progressive,  21.  Voters  virtually  dis¬ 
franchised,  that  is,  those  whose  ballots  did  not  have  the  slightest 
effect  on  the  make-up  of  the  delegation — Democrats,  13,000;  Repub¬ 
licans,  82,000;  Progressives,  71,000;  total  virtually  disfranchised, 
nearly  50  per  cent  of  the  whole  number.  According  to  the  ballots, 
as  actually  marked,  there  should  have  been  elected  6  Democrats,  3 
Republicans,  and  3  Progressives;  according  to  the  rules  of  our  present 
electoral  system,  there  were  declared  elected  11  Democrats,  1  Repub¬ 
lican,  and  no  Progressive.  How  much  the  result  was  further  vitiated 
by  the  fact  that  many  of  the  voters  did  not  dare  to  mark  their  ballots 
for  their  real  first  choice  for  Congress,  for  fear  of  throwing  away  their 
votes,  nobody  knows. 

In  the  momentous  British  general  elections  of  January,  1910 — 

there  were  144  constituencies  in  which  the  successful  member  was  returned  by  a 
majority  of  less  than  500.  Of  these  constituencies  69  seats  were  held  by  the  Ministeri¬ 
alists  [the  Liberals,  Irish  Nationalists,  and  Labor  Party  men]  and  75  by  the  Unionists 
[Conservatives].  The  majorities  were  in  some  cases  as  low  as  8,  10,  and  14.  The 
aggregate  of  the  majorities  in  the  Ministerialist  constituencies  amounted  to  16,931, 
and  had  some  8,500  Liberals  in  these  constituencies  changed  sides,  the  Ministerialist 
majority  of  124  might  have  been  annihilated.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Unionists  held 


1  On  this  point  I  select  my  examples  from  national  instead  of  from  State  elections  because  national  issues 
are  more  generally  understood.  This  example  is  taken  from  an  article  entitled  “  Shall  the  people  rule?  ” 
by  John  E.  Eastmond  in  the  Trend  Magazine  for  February,  1913. 


14 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


75  seats  by  an  aggregate  majority  of  17,389,  and  had  fortune  favored  the  Ministerialists 
in  these  constituencies  their  majority  would  have  been  no  less  than  274.  Such  is  the 
stability  of  the  foundation  on  which  the  House  of  Commons  rests,  such  the  method 
to  which  we  trust  when  it  is  necessary  to  consult  the  nation  on  grave  national  issues.1 

The  number  of  Socialist  votes  for  Congressmen  in  1908,  relatively 
to  the  number  cast  for  Congressmen  by  other  parties,  entitled  the 
party  to  several  members,  but  it  elected  only  one.  In  1912  the  party, 
though  it  doubled  its  vote,  did  not  elect  a  single  Congressman. 

If  such  virtual  disfranchisement  of  a  large  percentage  of  the  voters 
were  necessary,  it  would  be  foolish  to  spend  good  printer’s  ink  pro¬ 
testing  against  it;  but  it  is  quite  unnecessary.  There  is  no  reason 
why  nearly  every  voter  in  New  Jersey  should  not  have  in  the  legisla¬ 
ture  a  member  for  whom  he  voted  and  for  whom  he  wanted  to  vote. 
And  the  legislature  need  not  have  many  members  either.  All  that 
is  necessary  is  to  get  rid  of  the  arbitrarily  defined  geographical  con¬ 
stituency  (for  each  member) — half  or  two-thirds  of  the  voters  in 
which,  perhaps,  vote  against  the  member  sent  up  by  it  and  are  there¬ 
fore  certainly  misrepresented — a  constituency  defined  as  a  group  of 
voters  united  in  wanting  to  be  represented  by  a  certain  person  and 
numerous  enough  to  deserve  a  representative. 

Before  considering  the  means  by  which  such  a  unanimous-con¬ 
stituency  system  of  representation  is  carried  out,  consider  the  results 
of  two  of  the  recent  parliamentary  elections  in  Tasmania,  where  such 
a  system — the  Hare — has  been  in  use  for  several  years. 


1912. 


Votes. 

Seats 

actually 

obtained. 

Seats  in 
proportion 
to  votes. 

Labor . 

33, 634 
40,252 

14 

13.66 

Nonlabor . 

16 

16.34 

1913. 


Votes. 

Seats 

actually 

obtained. 

Seats  in 
proportion 
to  votes. 

Labor . 

30, 896 
34, 676 

14 

14. 14 

Nonlabor . 

16 

15. 86 

Surely  John  Stuart  Mill’s  eloquent  tribute  to  the  Hare  system  in 
his  Autobiography  is  not  extravagant.  He  writes: 

This  great  discovery,  for  it  is  no  less,  in  the  political  art,  inspired  me  *  *  *  with 
new  and  more  sanguine  hopes  respecting  the  future  of  human  society — by  freeing  the 
form  of  political  institutions  toward  which  the  whole  civilized  world  is  manifestly 
and  irresistibly  tending  (i.  e.,  democracy)  from  the  chief  part  of  what  seemed  to 
qualify,  or  render  doubtful,  its  ultimate  benefits.  *  *  *  I  can  understand  that 

gersons,  otherwise  intelligent,  should,  for  want  of  sufficient  examination,  be  repelled 
om  Mr.  Hare’s  plan  by  what  they  think  the  complex  nature  of  its  machinery.  But 
anyone  who  does  not  feel  the  want  which  the  scheme  is  intended  to  supply;  anyone 
who  throws  it  over  as  a  mere  intellectual  subtlety  or  crochet,  tending  to  no  valuable 
purpose,  and  unworthy  the  attention  of  practical  men,  may  be  pronounced  an  incom¬ 
petent  statesman,  unequal  to  the  politics  of  the  future. 

Take  a  specific  case.  Suppose  the  legislature  were  to  be  composed 
of  25  members  in  a  single  chamber.  (A  second  chamber  is  useless, 


1  J.  H.  Humphreys:  Proportional  Representation,  Methuen  &  Co.,  London,  1911,  p.  27. 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


15 


obviously,  if  the  first  one  is  made  truly  representative  of  the  entire 
electorate.) 

In  such  a  case,  under  our  present  system,  we  should  divide  the 
State  into  25  districts,  in  each  of  which  one  member  would  be  elected 
by  a  plurality  of  the  voters.  By  adopting  one  of  the  majority  prefer¬ 
ential  systems  explained  in  the  first  part  of  this  article  we  might,  of 
course,  insure  the  election  of  each  member  by  a  majority  of  the  voters 
of  his  district  instead  of  by  a  mere  plurality.  But  that  would  not 
help  matters  much;  for  even  though  every  member  were  elected  by 
a  majority  of  the  voters  of  his  district,  the  number  of  the  unrepre¬ 
sented  or  misrepresented  in  the  whole  State  might  still  be  very  great — • 
any  number,  indeed,  up  to  half  of  all  the  voters. 

But  suppose  we  abandon  the  single-member  geographical  con¬ 
stituency  altogether,  substituting  for  it  a  constituency  of  approxi¬ 
mately  the  same  number  of  voters  who  are  unanimous  in  desiring  a 
certain  person  as  representative.  Then  we  shall  be  able  to  reflect  truly 
in  the  legislature  the  interests  and  opinions,  in  other  words  the  will 
of  all  the  voters  of  the  State.  First  throw  the  geographical  districts 
together  into  one  or  more  large  districts.  You  mat  poll  the  whole 
State  as  one  district,  electing  all  25  members  at  larA  on  one  ticket, 
or  you  may  divide  the  State  into  two  or  three  district,  each  of  which 
would  elect  as  many  members  as  its  population  entitled  it  to.  For 
the  purposes  of  explanation  I  shall  suppose  that  we  choose  to  divide 
the  State  into  three  large  districts,  of  which  one,  let  us  say  that  in 
which  Newark  is  situated,  is  to  elect  nine  members,  the  others  eight 
each.  Now,  how  is  each  of  the  districts,  for  example  that  of  Newark, 
to  elect  its  members  ? 

There  are  several  types  of  proportional  or  unanimous-constituency 
representation.  All  are  based  on  the  fundamental  principle  that  if 
a  large  district  is  to  send  a  certain  number  of  members,  say  nine,  to  the 
legislature,  each  of  the  nine  largest  groups  of  voters  who  can  unite  on  a 
candidate  should  be  allowed  to  send  one.  But  this  fundamental 
principle  can  be  applied  in  various  ways. 

One  way  is  to  provide  that  the  candidates  be  nominated  in  lists 
by  the  several  parties,  any  group  of  voters  who  wish  to  act  together 
for  this  purpose  being  considered  a  “  party’  ’  for  the  particular  election 
in  question.  (If  party  names  are  allowed  on  the  ballots,  some  pro¬ 
vision  must  be  made,  of  course,  by  primaries  or  otherwise,  for  deter¬ 
mining  which  group  of  petitioners  is  entitled  to  use  any  party  name 
which  two  or  more  such  groups  may  claim.  If  party  names  are  not 
allowed  on  the  ballots,  this  difficulty  is  altogether  avoided,  yet  with¬ 
out  in  the  least  preventing  any  party  or  faction,  old  or  new,  from 
electing  as  many  members  as  its  voting  strength  entitled  it  to.) 
This  is  commonly  called  the  “list  system.”  It  is  used  for  the  election 
of  parliamentary  chambers  in  Belgium,  Finland,  Switzerland  (the 
Councils  of  about  half  the  Cantons),  Sweden,  and  Wiirtemberg. 

Following  are  provisions  suitable  in  a  general  way  for  the  election 
of  the  group  of  nine  members  to  be  sent  to  the  legislature  by  the 
Newark  district  that  we  have  taken  as  an  example: 

List  System  of  Proportional  Representation. 

NOMINATION  AND  ELECTION  PROVISIONS. 

Section  1.  Nomination  of  candidates  for  the  legislature  in  each  district  shall  be  by 
petition,  signed  by  electors,  who  have  signed  no  other  petition  to  nominate  any  candi¬ 
date  for  the  legislature  at  the  same  election,  to  the  number  of .  The  petitions  shall 


16 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


include  the  domicile  addresses  of  the  candidates.  Each  such  petition  may  nominate 
as  many  persons  not  nominated  by  any  other  petition,  as  there  are  seats  to  be  filled 
from  the  district.  Each  petition  shall  be  signed,  filed,  and  verified  in  the  manner 
prescribed  by  general  law,  shall  contain  the  signed  consent  of  each  candidate,  and 
shall  be  filed  with  the  election  authorities  at  least  20  days  prior  to  the  election. 

Sec.  2.  The  several  lists  of  candidates — all  the  persons  nominated  by  one  group  of 
petitioners  being  considered  one  list — shall  appear  on  the  ballots,  without  party  names 
or  emblems,  in  the  order  in  which  they  were  filed  with  the  election  authorities.  The 
names  and  domicile  addresses  of  the  candidates  on  each  list  shall  be  printed  on  the 
ballot  in  the  alphabetical  order  of  the  surnames. 

Sec.  3.  The  votes  shall  be  taken  on  ballots  used  for  the  filling  of  no  other  offices. 
The  form  of  the  ballot  shall  be  substantially  as  shown  in  table  on  following  page. 

Sec.  4.  The  total  number  of  valid  ballots  for  representative  in  the  legislature  cast 
in  the  district  shall  be  divided  by  the  number  of  representatives  to  be  elected  from 
the  district,  and  the  quotient  shall  be  the  “ quota.” 

Sec.  5.  The  number  of  full  quotas  contained  in  the  total  number  of  valid  ballots 
cast  in  the  district  for  the  candidates  of  a  list  shall  be  the  number  of  candidates  on  said 
list  to  be  declared  elected  on  the  first  assignment  of  seats. 

Sec.  6.  After  this  first  assignment  of  seats,  the  remaining  seats,  if  any,  shall  be 
assigned  as  follows:  The  number  of  valid  ballots  for  the  candidates  of  each  list  shall 
be  divided  by  the  number  of  seats,  plus  one,  already  assigned  to  such  list,  and  to 
the  list  showing  the  largest  quotient  shall  be  assigned  one  additional  seat.  This 
performance  shall  be  repeated  until  the  number  of  seats  assigned  shall  be  that  to 
which  the  district  SlTentitled.1 

Sec.  7.  The  candidates  to  be  declared  elected  from  any  list  shall  be  those  indi¬ 
vidually  receiving  we  largest  number  of  valid  votes. 

.  [Form  of  ballot.] 


FOR  MEMBERS  OF  THE  LEGISLATURE. 

Directions  to  Voters: 

Mark  a  cross  (x)  opposite  the  name  of  one  candidate  only  for  whom  you  want  to  vote.  (If  the 
candidate  you  vote  for  is  found  to  be  elected  without  your  vote,  or  if  he  is  found  to  have  too  few 
votes  to  be  elected  with  it,  your  vote  will  be  counted  for  some  other  candidate  on  the  same  list.) 

A  ballot  is  spoilt  if  more  than  one  name  is  marked.  If  you  spoil  this  ballot,  tear  it  across  once, 
return  it  to  the  election  officer  in  charge  of  the  ballots,  and  get  another  from  him. 

CANDIDATES  FOR  THE  LEGISLATURE. 

*  List  1.  List  2.  List  3. 


[Domicile  address.] 

B . 

a  u 

o . 

a  u 

P... . 

s . 

T . 

V . 

Y . 

•> 

[Domicile  address.] 

D . 

it  (( 

L . 

M . 

U  U 

N . 

u  u 

Q . 

u  u 

u . 

Sec.  8.  A  ballot  marked  for  more  than  one  candidate  shall  be  set  aside  as  invalid; 
but  no  ballot  on  which  the  voter  has  clearly  voted  for  one  and  only  one  candidate 
shall  be  set  aside  as  invalid  because  the  mark  is  in  a  form  other  than  that  of  a  cross 
(X)  or  for  any  other  merely  technical  reason. 


1  The  reasons  for  these  provisions  are  explained  below  in  connection  with  a  concrete  illustration.  The 
provisions  are  essentially  the  same  as  those  governing  the  assignment  of  seats  to  lists  in  the  system  of 
proportional  representation  used  for  parliamentary  elections  in  Belgium. 

*  The  squares  for  the  voters’  cross  would  be  at  the  right  of  the  names,  of  course,  in  States  in  which  cus¬ 
tom  would  require  such  a  change. 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


17 


Sec.  9.  To  any  vacancy  that  shall  occur,  otherwise  than  by  the  operation  of  the 

recall,  in  the  delegation  of  representatives  to  the  legislature  from  a  district,  the - 

fhere  name  the  proper  election  authorities]  shall  appoint,  to  fill  out  the  unexpired 
term,  that  candidate  from  the  list  on  which  the  vacating  representative  was  nominated 
who  of  all  the  unelected  candidates  on  that  list  received  most  valid  votes. 

Consider  liow  these  rules  would  work  out  in  a  concrete  case.  Sup¬ 
pose  the  Newark  district,  which  is  to  elect  nine  of  the  twenty-five 
members  of  the  legislature,  polls  valid  votes  as  follows: 

List  1. 


Candidate  A .  20,  000  ^ 

Candidate  B .  30,  000  ^ 

Candidate  O .  2,  000 

*  Candidate  P .  26,  000  *<•''' 

Candidate  S .  600 

Candidate  T .  20 

Candidate  V .  15,  000  * 

^  Candidate  Y . , .  5, 100 


98,  720 

List  2. 

Candidate  C .  5,000 

Candidate  G .  2,  000 

Candidate  H .  3,450 

Candidate  J .  20, 110  IS 

Candidate  K .  12,001 


42,  561 

List  3. 

Candidate  D .  10,000 

Candidate  L .  5,  000 

Candidate  M .  11,  002  ^ 

Candidate  N .  20,  425  ^ 

Candidate  Q .  30,204 

Candidate  U .  1, 104 


77,  735 

The  ballots  being  marked  as  shown  by  these  figures,  the  total  vote 
of  the  district  would  be  219,016.  The  quota  would  be  that  number 
divided  by  9,  which  is  24,335^. 

As  that  last  number  is  fully  contained  in  the  vote  of  the  first  list 
four  times,  that  list  is  given  four  seats  on  the  first  assignment.  The 
four  candidates  on  the  first  list  to  receive  these  seats  are  (1)  Candi¬ 
date  B,  (2)  Candidate  P,  (3)  Candidate  A,  and  (4)  Candidate  V. 

As  the  quota  is  fully  contained  once  in  the  vote  of  the  second  list, 
that  list  is  given  one  seat  on  the  first  assignment,  the  candidate 
p  receiving  it  being  Candidate  J. 

As  the  quota  is  fully  contained  three  times  in  the  vote  of  the  third 
list,  that  list  is  given  three  seats  on  the  first  assignment,  the  candi¬ 
dates  receiving  them  being  Candidates  Q,  N,  and  M. 

Applying  now  the  rule  of  section  6  above,  we  find  that  dividing 
98,720  by  5  gives  us  19,744;  dividing  42,561  by  2  gives  us  21,285^; 
and  dividing  77,735  by  4  gives  us  19,433f.  We  therefore  assign  the 
ninth  seat  to  the  second  list,  the  candidate  receiving  it  being  Candi¬ 
date  K. 

The  method  of  determining  to  which  lists  the  seats  not  filled  by 
the  first  assignment  shall  be  given  may  seem  arbitrary,  but  in  fact 
it  is  not.  Of  course,  if  the  voters  happened  to  divide  into  the  three 
S.  Doc.  142,  63-1 - 2 


18 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


groups  on  the  lines  of  full  ninths,  that  is,  if  the  first  list  received 
exactly  four-ninths  of  the  votes,  the  second  list  exactly  two-ninths, 
and  the  third  list  exactly  three-ninths,  the  first  assignment  would 
fill  all  the  seats,  and  the  constituency  filling  each  one  would  be  a 
full,  as  well  as  unanimous,  quota.  But  the  voters  can  not  be  expected 
to  divide  themselves  into  ninths  so  perfectly;  and  as  that  is  the  case, 
the  rules  of  the  election  system  must  provide  for  giving  the  seats 
to  the  nine  largest  groups  that  actually  do  form.  We  can  now  see  the 
reason  for  dividing  the  total  vote  of  the  first  list  by  5,  that  of  the 
second  list  by  2,  and  that  of  the  third  list  by  4  to  determine  to  which 
the  ninth  seat  should  be  assigned.  We  divide  the  total  vote  of  the 
first  list  by  5  to  find  out  how  large  each  group  would  be  if  five  instead 
of  four  were  made  out  of  the  first  list’s  vote.  We  divide  the  total  vote 
of  the  second  list  by  2  to  find  out  how  large  each  group  would  be 
if  two  groups  instead  of  one  were  made  out  of  that  list’s  vote.  And 
after  dividing  the  third  list’s  vote  by  4  for  a  similar  reason,  we 
assign  the  next  seat  (the  ninth)  to  that  one  of  the  three  lists  “which 
shows  the  largest  quotient,”  as  the  rules  put  it,  in  other  words  to 
that  one  of  them  which,  if  it  were  assigned  one  more  seat,  would  be 
electing  each  of  its  members  by  the  largest  part  of  a  full  quota. 

Compare  the  errors  of  this  election  with  those  of  an  election  of 
representatives  under  our  present  single-member  geographical  con¬ 
stituency  system.  Under  the  latter  the  error  involved  in  the  election 
of  a  member  often  amounts,  as  we  have  seen,  to  from  40  to  60  per 
cent  of  all  the  voters  of  a  constituency,  and  it  would  often  amount 
to  nearly  50  per  cent  of  them  even  if  a  majority  preferential  system 
were  substituted  for  our  usual  system  of  pluralities  and  primaries. 
In  the  election  we  have  examined,  on  the  other  hand,  the  error,  in 
the  case  of  the  election  of  each  member,  is  only  the  difference  between 
the  number  of  votes  that  elect  him  and  a  full  quota.  In  the  case  of 
Candidates  B,  P,  A,  and  V,  for  example,  the  error  is  the  difference 
between  24,680  (the  number  of  times  that  4  goes  into  98,720)  and 
24,335U  which  is  the  full  quota.  In  the  case  of  candidates  J  and  K 
the  error  is  the  difference  between  21,285^  (the  number  of  times  that 
2  goes  into  42,561)  and  24,335U  the  full  quota.  In  the  case  of  Can¬ 
didates  Q,  N,  and  M  the  error  is  the  difference  between  25,91  If  (the 
number  of  times  that  3  goes  into  77,735)  and  24,335U  the  full  quota. 

It  should  be  noticed  that  every  member  elected  by  this  system  is 
elected  by  a  constituency  that  may  fairly  be  called  unanimous. 
Take  the  case  of  Candidate  V.  It  is  true,  of  course,  that  many  of 
the  21,285^  votes  by  which  Candidate  V  is  elected  were  cast  by  voters 
who  preferred  one  of  the  other  candidates,  B,  P,  O,  S,  T,  or  Y.  Yet 
every  one  of  those  voters  indicated,  by  marking  candidates  in  the 
first  list  after  reading  the  “Directions  to  voters”  at  the  top  of  the 
ballot,  that  he  wanted  to  help  elect  some  other  candidate  in  that  list 
if  his  vote  could  not  be  effective  for  the  particular  candidate  he 
marked.  It  may  be  objected  that  the  list  itself  did  not  precisely 
suit  every  one  of  the  voters  who  decided  to  vote  for  some  candidate 
on  it.  That  is  true*  but  it  must  at  least  have  nearly  suited  every 
politically  intelligent  voter  who  supported  it,  for  otherwise  the 
unsatisfied  would  have  taken  advantage  of  the  opportunity,  easily 
afforded  them  by  section  1  of  the  election  provisions ,  to  nominate  one 
or  more  other  lists.  Within  the  limits  of  the  flexibility  of  a  list  or 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


19 


party  system,  therefore,  the  constituency  electing  Candidate  V — 
and  the  same  may  be  said  of  any  of  the  eight  others  elected — may  be 
said  to  be  unanimous. 

The  proportional  system  set  forth  above  provides,  therefore,  a 
means  by  which  at  a  single  election  the  voters  of  a  large  district  can 
form  almost  perfectly  unanimous  constituencies  each  one  of  which 
contains  approximately  the  same  number  of  voters  that  there  would 
be  in  an  entire  single-member  district  under  our  present  system. 
Under  the  proportional  system  explained,  therefore,  the  delegation 
of  members  from  one  of  the  large  districts — for  example,  that  of 
Newark — would  represent  the  voters  of  that  part  of  the  State  almost 
perfectly;  and  as  the  same  would  be  true  also  of  the  two  other  large 
districts  of  the  State,  the  legislature  as  a  whole  would  represent 
almost  perfectly  the  voters  of  the  State. 

Besides  the  list  system  of  proportional  or  true  representation,  there 
are  two  others  equally  worthy  of  our  attention  in  this  country  at  the 
present  time. 

One  of  these  is  the  Hare  system,  which  is  advocated  for  the  election 
of  city  councils  and  fully  explained  in  Pamphlet  No.  2,1  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Proportional  Representation  League,  which  will  be  mailed  by 
either  secretary  of  the  league  to  any  address  on  receipt  of  4  cents 
in  stamps.  This  system  is  often  called  “the  single  transferable 
vote”;  but  that  name  is  not  altogether  satisfactory,  for  in  most 
other  systems  also,  including  the  list  system  explained  above,  the 
vote  is  “single,”  each  voter’s  ballot  actually  counting  for  only  one 
candidate,  and  it  is  “transferable,”  though  only  within  the  limits 
of  one  list.  A  more  accurate  name  for  the  Hare  system  would  be 
the  unrestricted-preferences  system ,  for  its  distinguishing  characteristic 
is  that  it  allows  each  voter  to  indicate,  unrestricted  by  any  party 
or  list  lines,  his  personal  preferences,  as  many  or  as  few  as  he  pleases, 
among  all  the  candidates  on  the  ballot  whose  names  are  printed  in  a 
single  hst,  the  rules  for  counting  the  ballots  under  the  Hare  system 
being  suitable,  of  course,  for  making  every  ballot  effective,  so  far  as 
possible,  according  to  the  individual  preferences  expressed  on  it 

This  is  the  system  in  use  for  the  election  of  the  Parliament  of 
Tasmania  and  the  Senate  of  South  Africa,  and  incorporated  by 
special  votes  of  the  British  Parliament  in  the  “Home  rule”  bill 
for  the  election  of  the  senate  and  the  house  proposed  for  Ireland. 
That  it  is  the  most  flexible  and  perfect  of  all  systems  of  voting  for 
representatives  is  hardly  open  to  question.  It  requires,  however, 
for  the  carrying  out  of  the  transfers  required  to  make  wasted  votes 
effective,  the  bringing  together  to  a  central  place  of  all  the  ballots 
cast  in  the  large  district  which  elects  several  members.  As  this 
requirement  will  doubtless  be  felt  by  some  people  to  be  at  present 
a  somewhat  serious  obstacle  to  the  introduction  of  this  system  in 
elections  covering  an  extended  territory,  the  list  system  just  explained 
and  the  “schedule  system,”  explained  in  the  April  (1913)  Equity, 
are  worthy  of  our  careful  attention  now  in  this  country,  especially 
in  respect  to  State  and  Federal  elections,  in  which  each  district 
would  be  very  extensive. 


1  For  some  slight  amendments  that  should  be  made  in  the  Ilare  rules  as  printed  in  that  pamphlet  and  in 
the  last  issue  of  Equity,  see  an  article  elsewhere  in  the  present  issue. 


20 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


Under  the  schedule  plan  the  candidates7  names  are  printed  on 
the  ballot  in  a  single  list,  as  under  the  Hare  plan,  instead  of  in 
several  lists,  as  under  the  list  plan.  But  under  the  schedule  plan  each 
candidate  really  stands  for  a  list,  for  the  distinguishing  feature  of 
the  plan  is  that  every  ballot  that  can  not  help  elect  the  candidate 
for  whom  it  was  cast  is  to  be  counted  to  help  some  other  candidate 
on  a  list  published  before  the  election  as  that  of  the  candidates  who 
are  to  receive,  in  the  order  in  which  their  names  stand  on  the  list, 
any  votes  cast  for  the  candidate  in  question  which  can  not  help  him 
either  because  he  has  a  full  quota  without  them  or  because  he  is  found 
to  have  no  chance  of  being  elected  with  them. 

The  differences  between  the  schedule  plan  and  the  list  plan  are 
these  : 

(1)  The  former  lends  itself  to  the  Australian  form  of  ballot, 
whereas  the  latter  lends  itself  to  the  party-list  form  of  ballot. 

(2)  The  former  offers  the  voter  many  lists,  a  different  one  for  each 
candidate,  without  making  the  ballot  physically  cumbersome, 
whereas  the  latter  either  restricts  the  voter  to  a  few  lists  or  makes  the 
ballot  cumbersome.  Neither  plan,  of  course,  makes  the  ballot  “  long 77 
in  the  political  sense  of  that  word;  for  politically  a  ballot  is  11  long 77 
that  is  hard  to  vote  so  as  to  make  the  voter’s  will  effective,  and  a 
ballot  is  “ short 77  that  is  easy  to  vote  so  as  to  produce  that  result; 
and  it  is  very  easy  for  the  voter  to  vote  so  as  to  make  his  will  effective 
with  either  a  schedule  or  a  list  plan  ballot. 

(3)  The  schedule  plan  allows  a  candidate’s  name  to  be  on  more 
than  one  list,  whereas  the  list  plan,  unless  the  rules  are  made  rather 
complicated,  does  not. 

Either  plan,  if  carried  out  with  suitable  rules,  may  be  expected  to 
give  nearly  perfect  results.  Either  will  elect  a  representative  body 
incomparably  more  useful,  because  incomparably  more  truly  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  voters,  than  those  we  have  had  in  the  past.  To  a 
legislature  elected  by  either  may  safely  be  intrusted  the  power  to 
select  the  chief  administrative  official  of  the  State — not  a  governor, 
with  veto  powers,  but  a  sort  of  State  manager  with  purely  adminis¬ 
trative  duties — from  anywhere  in  the  country  or  the  world  to  serve 
indefinitely,  on  a  professional  basis,  so  long  as  he  is  satisfactory  to 
the  truly  representative  legislature  and  to  the  people.  Either  may 
be  made  the  basis,  therefore,  of  a  form  of  State  government  at  once 
truly  democratic  and  highly  efficient.. 

As  for  the  election  of  the  single-chambered  council  or  commission 
by  which  our  cities  should  be  governed  under  the  “  manager  plan,77 
for  that  I  have  been  advocating  the  Hare  system  because  it  gives 
the  individual  voter  even  greater  freedom  in  the  expression  of  his 
will  than  the  list  or  the  schedule  system.  Wherever,  however,  the 
Hare  system  is  thought  too  hard  to  explain  to  the  public,  or  the 
opposition  to  bringing  together  all  the  ballots  of  the  city — or  of  one 
of  the  large  districts,  if  the  city  is  divided  into  such  districts — is 
insurmountable,  either  the  list  or  the  schedule  system  is  to  be  recom¬ 
mended,  with  confidence  that  either  will  give  general  satisfaction 
and  make  the  excellent  “ manager  plan,”  which  for  efficiency  is  cer¬ 
tainly  the  best  general  plan  of  city  government,  truly  democratic. 


EFFECTIVE  VOTING. 


21 


CONCLUSION. 

To  sum  up  a  few  of  the  points  covered  by  this  article,  there  is  no 
place  at  all  hi  a  plan  of  government  suited  to  modern  conditions  for 
either  primary  elections  or  plurality  voting.  When  the  object  of  the 
voting  is  to  make  a  selection  among  more  than  two  candidates  for 
one  nonrepresentative  office,  or  to  make  a  decision  for  one  of  more 
than  two  alternative  measures  or  policies,  the  voting  should  be  done 
by  one  of  the  majority  systems  explained  in  the  first  part  of  this 
article,  preferably  by  the  Nanson  system,  where  the  counting  of  the 
ballots  by  that  system  would  not  be  seriously  inconvenient.  When 
the  object  of  the  voting  is  to  make  up  a  selection-making  or  decision¬ 
making  body — that  is,  a  deliberative,  representative,  legislative,  policy¬ 
determining  body — the  voting  should  be  done  by  a  unanimous  con¬ 
stituency  or  proportional  system,  such  as  the  Hare,  the  list,  or  the 
schedule.  In  all  majority  voting  the  voter  should  be  allowed  to 
express  his  will  as  fully  as  he  pleases.  In  the  case  of  unanimous- 
constituency  voting  he  should  be  allowed  to  express  his  personal 
preferences  with  the  utmost  freedom  possible;  in  other  words,  the 
Hare  system  should  be  preferred  to  the  list  or  the  schedule  except 
where  public  opinion  is  not  sufficiently  educated  to  demand  the  Hare . 
The  marking  of  majority  ballots  should  in  all  cases  be  by  the  figures 
1,  2,  etc.;  that  of  unanimous-constituency  ballots  by  the  same  method 
(in  the  case  of  the  Hare  system)  or  by  a  simple  cross  (in  the  case  of 
the  list  or  the  schedule  system).  Finally,  the  representative  body 
of  a  State  or  a  city  elected  by  a  system  insuring  true  representation 
should  be  given  the  power  to  select  and  to  retain  in  office  during  its 
pleasure  indefinitely,  subject  only  to  the  application  of  the  recall  by 
the  people  where  that  institution  is  in  use,  a  chief  administrative 
official  of  professional  experience  and  attainments. 


o 


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